The overall concept of the project consists of supporting innovation in SMEs and fostering the smart reindustrialization of Europe by enabling the emergence of new cross-border and cross-sectoral value chains resulting from the translation of advanced technologies among selected sectors with strong synergies. These new value chains will be created from the interaction of the following sectors: aerospace, agro-food sector, Health & medical devices and ICT. The project will take of 36Months. The development of the new value chains will be facilitated setting up geographical poles of activity in different regions across ES, PT, NL, IL and PL, comprising: Cluster/ SME intermediaries, which help create an appropriate innovation ecosystems; RTD centres. which are able to assess the potential and viability of the proposed new value chains for SMEs innovative services or products. Besides, the third kind of entity, the innovation facilitators will operate at a cross-cluster level, organizing funding rounds to complement with private funds EU public support and establishing networks for collaboration. More than 50 letters of support signed by a different type of stakeholders. ACTTiVAte will undertake 2 kinds of activities to optimize the benefits to SMEs: a)Direct funding of SMEs innovative projects. Competitive calls will be launched in the proposed technology areas. The winning projects (50) will be selected and an overall amount of up to 46.000€/each SME from a total of a 1,5M€ from the project budget. The selection criteria will consider both the technical feasibility and viability and the socioeconomic impact. b)Activities aimed at creating a favourable environment for the innovation in those SMEs participating in projects selected in the call for proposal processes, such as brokerage events, innovation services, open collaboration platforms, investor readiness training or guidance to set up coaching, training, mentoring, peer sharing, internationalization solutions (Mobility and Exchange Program with 10.000€ of additional funding to the top five SMEs), B2B matchmaking. The demonstration of the project at large scale will also be carried out during the project.

SIXFOLD unites partners from the ‘Smart Sensors 4 Agri-food’ Partnership, and its network of Living Labs with a clear aim, Stimulating Innovation eXperiments in Food prOcessing Live Demonstrators. The twin transition stands at the heart of the Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy. The agri-food sector plays a critical role in the realisation of these ambitions. The nature of deep tech innovation also shows the need for a transition via responsible regulatory frameworks. Living Labs are looking for more experimentation by engaging societal stakeholders and addressing innovation barriers experienced by agri-food companies. SIXFOLD aims to facilitate implementation of deep tech within the agri-food sector, by building a robust network of Living Labs across the EU. This network will support a dynamic and regionally embedded ecosystem thriving with deep tech innovations relevant for the agri-food industry such as AI and machine learning, robots and co-bots, biotech, etc. throughout the food system. The timing is critical for agri-food companies to experiment with innovative technologies and collaboration with deep tech innovators. SIXFOLD builds on an existing framework. Nevertheless, a careful assessment of the current state of play through interviews and study visits is made after which assessed barriers to innovation is tackled by a tailor-made co-creation process. This ensures maximum participation of external experts, regulators, and broader societal actors on regional and European levels and in turn generates a more complete and validated Action Plan adapted to real-world needs. The network of Living Labs will in this way facilitate collaborative knowledge exchange by actively engaging stakeholders from various regions and ensuring inclusivity and diversity in participation. Amongst other objectives, the updated Operational Handbook of the network of Living Labs will form the basis of a successful transition towards sustainable food systems across Europe.

Proper nutrition is essential for good health, well-being and the prevention, mitigation or treatment of a number of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Food is not only a source of calories, but also a complex mixture of dietary chemicals, some of which are directly related to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, allergies and some types of cancer. Foods, diet and nutritional status, including overweight and obesity, are also associated with elevated blood pressure and blood cholesterol or even resistance to the action of insulin. These conditions are not only risk factors for non-communicable diseases, but major causes of illness themselves. However, today's diet is characterized by irregular and poorly balanced meals. Unhealthy eating habits in our daily life are not only risk factors for non-communicable diseases, but also major causes of stress and tiredness, i.e., lack of energy. Knowledge about our dietary habits based on the analysis of diverse types of information, including individual parameters, can contribute greatly towards answering key questions to respond to societal challenges regarding food and health. Motivated by the aforementioned, the PROTEIN project aims to develop an end-to-end ecosystem that will engage people to a healthy, pleasurable, nutritional and sustainable diet by offering a daily program adapted to their needs and driven by their personal preferences, physical and physiological characteristics as well as their health status. Specifically, the main objective of PROTEIN is to create an ICT-based system for providing personalized nutrition based on the collection and analysis of large volumes of data related to users' dietary behavioural patterns, physical activity and individual parameters. PROTEIN proposes a radically novel approach to advice and support consumers in everyday living, while ensuring users’ privacy protection i.e., data will be anonymized and securely stored in the Cloud for processing.

Food_scalEUp is a collaborative project involving 10 organisations covering 11 regions (5 emerging & moderate innovator regions and 6 leader and strong innovator regions, according to the Regional Innovation Scoreboard) in 5 countries. The project long-term vision is to foster the capacity of European regional agri-food digital innovation ecosystems, especially in “emerging” and “moderate” innovator regions, to be more: • connected among their regional stakeholders but also with other European regional ecosystems; thus, advancing towards a European acceleration ecosystem; • effective, by fostering the successful scaling-up of technology start-ups and SMEs; • impactful, in terms of fostering the digital and green transition of the food industry; • resilient; thus, still effective under crisis and highly changing conditions; and • internationally recognised by and attractive for companies from other countries. More specifically, the mission of Food_scalEUp project is to: (i) develop higher quality business acceleration services in agri-food digital innovation ecosystems of emerging and moderate innovator regions; (ii) expand the connections, knowledge exchange, collaboration at regional, European and international level, between key people representing the different actors of the agri-food digital innovation ecosystems involved in the project; and (iii) balance the scaling-up of start-ups and SMEs and the creation of local high-value added jobs in the European regions involved in the project, by balancing the capacity of agri-food digital innovation and acceleration ecosystems in those regions.

Smart Sensor Systems for Food safety, quality control and resource efficiency in the food processing industry (S3FOOD) will facilitate the modernisation and digitalisation of the food processing industry. S3FOOD will stimulate the integration of IoT and related technologies via the implementation of smart sensor systems in the food production processes in order to improve quality control, resource efficiency and the follow-up of food safety in the food production process. S3FOOD brings together clusters with a background in food processing industry, IoT, ICT and sensor technology. It will strengthen current and develop new cross-sectoral industrial value chains within the food production and processing industries through a combination of direct and indirect innovation actions, as well as support and capacity building measures. S3FOOD sets up a network of living labs, organize cross-sectoral, cross-border matchmaking/business/investment events, demonstrations and study visits for SMEs across geographical borders, sectors and with different innovation actors. An innovation voucher scheme will support the realisation of high-TRL, large scale, demonstration and commercialisation projects across Europe. Besides the consortium network, associated clusters from the S3 platform on Smart Sensor Systems 4 agri-food and other networks will support the outreach to SMEs across the EU. More than 2000 SMEs will be reached. More than 200 SME will participate in matchmaking events. A turnover growth rate of 30% is targeted in the SMEs having participated in support cases one year after the end of the project, preserving / creating more than 1000 jobs after the end of the project and by 2025. S3FOOD will operate for 3 years and has a total budget of € 5.046.050, €3.993.000 of which will directly benefit SMEs (79%). € 2.875.000 of the budget is targeted to provide innovation vouchers, and catalyse large-scale demonstration with commercialisation projects with 62 beneficiaries.